Rialto is Venice’s oldest market: ’Rivoaltus’, the high bank, was the very name of the city before it became Venice, and here, since 1097, the trade has been carried on that for centuries made the Serenissima the gateway to the Orient — organised as a proper market as early as 1322. And it was much bigger than today: beside the Erberia and the Pescaria stood the Beccarie for meat and the Naranzeria for citrus fruit.